Hall

Plaintiff appeals from a summary judgment for defendants after a finding by the trial court that no triable issue of fact existed.

I

The declarations, answers to interrogatories and admissions of the parties disclose the following facts.

Early in 1967, plaintiff, a beekeeper, moved 265 colonies of bees into defendants’ almond orchard, at defendants’ request, for the purpose of pollinizing the orchard. About a month later, plaintiff discovered that many of his bees had been killed. Investigation disclosed that they had been killed by a recent application of parathion, a pesticide,, to defendants’ orchard. The parathion had been applied by defendants with a ground rig or spray applicator. At all times defendants knew of the presence of plaintiff’s colonies in their orchard and in the orchard adjoining their property. They knew the colonies belonged to plaintiff and knew how to contact plaintiff.

Two other beekeepers assigned to plaintiff similar claims against defendants arising out of their placement of 100 colonies and 40 colonies, respectively, in the orchard adjoining defendants’ property. The assignors’ declarations show that their claims against defendants are…